Bohemia Interactive introduces "Bohemia Incubator"

Bohemia Interactive today announcesBohemia Incubator - a new label for experimental Bohemia Interactive games that are made available to the public. The idea behind Bohemia Incubator, and its first two games, is further introduced by Bohemia Interactive’s CEO Marek Španěl in a brand new video.

For players, Bohemia Incubator represents an opportunity to be a part of development very early on, and help shape the future of Bohemia Interactive and its games. On the developer side, the goal of the new Incubator label is to test game concepts and validate design decisions, as well as to guide the development of supporting technologies and services, including Bohemia Interactive’s next engine, Enfusion. In addition, it is a way to learn more about different areas of game development, game genres, and platforms.

To kick things off, Bohemia Incubator launches with the first two Incubator games, Ylands and Project Argo:

Ylands, which already soft-launched a few months ago, is a cheerful sandbox game for players of all ages, where you create your own adventures, alone or with friends in multiplayer. Build whatever you want using the many in-game items, or simply fight for survival. Each island is procedurally generated for the player, ranging from locations with a more temperate climate, to tropical rain-forests, scorching hot deserts, ice-cold polar areas, tundras, and more. Ylands is currently in Alpha, and is made with Unity. The game, as well as a free trial version, is now available on the Bohemia Store. Learn more about Ylands at www.ylands.com, and follow Ylands on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for all the latest news.

The second Incubator game is Project Argo, which is an experimental total conversion of Arma 3. In essence, Project Argo is a competitive tactical first-person shooter, where two bands of mercenaries compete over objectives in a 5-vs-5 match-up. Set on the island of Malden, the game features three modes, and depending on the mode, each match should take about 15 to 30 minutes. The Open Prototype of Project Argo is now available to play for free via the Bohemia Store. For more information about Project Argo, head over to the game’s website at www.projectargo.net, and like/follow Project Argo on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date with its development.

While there are similarities between Bohemia Incubator and Steam Early Access, a key difference is that Incubator games can be much more basic, experimental, and rough. Moreover, Bohemia Interactive might even decide to cancel or stop supporting an Incubator game. To reflect this, people will often be able to play the games for free while they are part of Bohemia Incubator - or, if it’s already certain that the Incubator game will see an official release (such as Ylands), it might be sold as a paid product but always at a much lower price than it will be at release. In this case, the aim is to still make a free trial version available.